July 2016 MAINE COASTAL NEWS Page 5. Mystic Seaport's Shipyard News
MYSTIC, CT –After a brief stop at Plym- outh Plantation in Plymouth, MA my wife was amiss that she did not get to see MAY- FLOWER II. I had a good idea where she was so it was off to Connecticut the next day to visit the Mystic Seaport Museum and their shipyard. It is great to walk around the campus, go through the exhibits, but the best part for me is going to the shipyard. One could tell they were really busy with numerous projects. Up on the hard was the schooner AMISTAD, in the shop was the steamer SABINO and in the water was MAYFLOWER. I was fortunate and caught up with
Quentin Snediker, who heads the shipyard. He said, “We have got a whole lot going on here. We put so many of our resources on the MORGAN project, especially in the last phases of it, which we are still catching up on. As early as 2011, we began discussing the possibility of MAYFLOWER II coming to Mystic Seaport for restoration. That dis- cussion continued through the MORGAN project till essentially in December of 2014 the MAYFLOWER came in here, we hauled her and did some immediate repair work, but more than anything else, we planned her complete restoration. She was built in 1957 and has had a lot of work done to her in the course of all those years, but she has never been holistically restored. In anticipation of the 400th
anniversary of the arrival of the
pilgrims in Plymouth they want to get her in good shape and get her back into Coast Guard certifi cation. She came last winter and stayed for about six months, went back in early June and came back again early De- cember last. This year we opted not to haul her, but to focus on work that could be done in the water above the top sides, because we didn’t want to do any redundant work. We know that she needs a longer regime of work. We agreed that she will be here for about 30 months. By the end of that time she will be fully restored, back to Coast Guard standards, and be good for the next 30 years. Hauled out on the railway right now is
AMISTAD. Quentin said, “She was built here and launched in 2000 and for about the last fi ve or six years she has had some hard times. The entity that owned the ves- sel unfortunately went bankrupt, the boat was taken over by a state receiver, and in November of 2015 she was put in the hands of a new not-for profi t called Discovering Amistad, which is charged with putting the boat back online as an educational entity. Due to the hard times she has undergone an extensive amount of work. We took the rig out for a complete inspection, did some repair work on the masthead, the engines are out and they will be back in a couple of weeks; she has been re-caulking from deck
edge to deck edge; and a bunch of other work. We are looking to launch her probably the fi rst week in June and she will be about another month in the rigging and reinstalling systems. In July she will take off and begin her new mission carrying schoolkids around various ports in Connecticut.” “The other big project that we have
going on now is the SABINO,” continued Quentin. “We have known for a good decade that her shaft log, original 1908 construc- tion, had some problems. In the fall of 2014 we decided that we would just bite the bullet and go for the shaft log and the shaft log is about as deep a surgery as you can do on a vessel like this. So we took the boat out of service last season and got ready to do ev- erything that she needed for the foreseeable future. To get her in here we had to take the house off and Brownell put her inside. We had to gut the inside and then we did a lot of framing back aft, mid body of the vessel had been reframed in the 90s, stringers, rudder post, horn timber, shaft log, deadwood, new keel bolts, some planking, pretty extensive work. Most of the structural work is wrap- ping up at this point, but the mechanical and systems work will be going on all summer. ” What they did not plan on was having
a new boiler made. Quentin added, “This boiler was put in in 1940 by the Navy, when she was serving the Navy in Maine. In all those years you can imagine…the tubes have eroded and there was some calcifi ca- tion. Essentially all of the parties concerned decided that it was time to put a new boiler in rather than simply trying to repair the existing boiler. It took us about 11 months to fi nd a company that was willing to do the job. We just signed an agreement with Potts Engineering out of Wilmington, Delaware to proceed with the design. Unfortunately, it is going to necessitate her being out of service again this year.” The SABINO will be launched the end
of June, early July and work will continue while she is in the water including rig instal- lation.
They still have other smaller projects under way. Early in June was the 150th
an-
niversary of the EMMA C. BERRY launch in 1866. Quentin said, “She is a boat that has shared history both here in the Mystic area, but also Maine. She was thoroughly rebuilt in the late 1980s, early 1990s, but again that was long enough ago that she needed some work. One of the things that we found is she needed some mast repair so we anticipate that we will have the mast in by the end of this week and then we will take her down river to Noank where the local Noank Historical Society and Mystic Seaport will collaboratively celebrate her 150th anniversary.”
A stern view of the steamer SABINO nearing the end of a total restoration. The rig is out of the L. A. DUTTON and
has been for about 18 months. They needed to replace one of her lowers and they expect to have at least the lowers and part of her rig back in this summer. They are also doing some work on the
JOSEPH CONRAD, who also needs some spar work. If you are making a trek south through
Mystic, Mystic Seaport is a place you should always stop. It is just relaxing to walk around and take in the exhibits, visit the shipyard, and spend money in their store. Also, if you are not a member you should be. This is America’s maritime museum and like your maritime museums in Maine they need our support to continue to save our maritime history.
Bring your boat to New England’s most capable yacht yard for the care she deserves. Repairs, refi ts, storage and dockage available for vessels up to 200 feet and 480 tons.
Belfast,Maine 207-930-3740
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